We’ve come a long way together over these past five months.  We began in January with the roots of Interfaith, how they have twined and indeed become inseparable from the call of social justice and a mutual respect of our common humanity.  We noted that Interfaith blossomed under the banner of the civil rights movement.  And how, today, Interfaith is still largely reserved for social justice projects – worthwhile projects: homelessness, hunger.

 

As we did this, we noted as well our human propensity for building walls.  Walls between races.  Walls between generations.  Walls between genders, nations, sexual orientations.  Walls between religions and walls between groups within religions.  And we are the poorer for these walls.  We are all diminished by them.  We concluded our first time together by asking the question: do we appreciate the community that we establish here – the hope that we nourish here?

 

In our second month we talked about Interfaith as a spiritual practice.  We explored some of what is so special here.  We are actively involved in social justice, and the Ethiopia Project is just one powerful example.  But we also come, together, as a spiritual community – a wonderfully diverse spiritual community and how special that is.  Each of us, here today is informed by his or her own spirituality.  None of us gives up our spiritual selves when we walk through those doors. 

 

But we also noted a tyranny that has enslaved the mind of humanity for thousands of years, the tyranny that forms the paradigm of “right belief.”  The paradigm that says there must be one and only one right answer to the question of God.  We, here, break the shackles of that tyranny. 

 

We spoke as well of the need to move past the idea of “tolerance” so much in vogue for many who think ourselves liberal.   I will tolerate your belief.  I will tolerate your being different.  Tolerance IS a first step.  But far too many of us have stopped there.  We must move from tolerance of each other to respect.  One way to do that is to break free from the paradigm of “right belief,” and move to a paradigm of the Cosmic Diamond, a Diamond with infinite facets.  Perhaps, just perhaps, Judaism is a reaction to seeing the light of Spirit reflected in one facet of this Cosmic Diamond.  And Christianity a reaction to light reflected by a different facet, and Islam, and Earth Spirituality, and First Peoples Spirituality, and Humanism.  All different ways of perceiving the light of Spirit.

 

If we embrace this, then we realize that each of us views a precious part of the whole.  If we embrace this, we can sustain and nourish our own light, as we see it, and yet welcome and respect the differing light that informs the person seated next to us.  It dawns on us that we are not in competition,  … that we can both thrive.

 

Our third time together we looked at and celebrated Passover and Easter, in the light of this Interfaith view.  We came to realize that if we will live Interfaith, we gain the richness of so many differing ways of seeing spirit…of perceiving spirit.  And the humility, sometimes not easy for us humans, the humility of realizing that our own individual spiritual path is not the only way.  We asked the question, can we who are not Christian celebrate Easter?  Can we celebrate that perspective of God’s infinite love?  The mystery of it.  The knowledge that we can be forgiven.  Can we who are not Jewish celebrate the Passover?  Can we celebrate the story of an ancient people who cried out in their misery and were answered by God?  That God could so love freedom that a people enslaved could be led to a new land, a free land, by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

 

And we asked what if a person doesn’t believe in God?  Not a God of freedom or forgiveness.   Then, still, can we not drink of the story that tells us that slavery is evil and all people should be free?  Can we not drink of the story that illuminates for us that forgiveness must be a part of who we are as human beings, and that love is indeed the paramount value, regardless of our faith?

 

Last month we talked about Interfaith Evangelism … and survived it!   We talked about Evgs.  You remember Evgs.  That’s what you get when you turn evangelism into a four letter word.  Evgs is not what we’re after.  We want to take the message of Interfaith beyond these four walls with respect for the feelings and beliefs of others.  We would do this NOT to convince others that they are wrong and we are right, but rather to spread the news that in a world of mistrust and hate, there IS another way.  It is not the only way, but it is a good way for us to learn to respect each other, to live with each other. 

 

But there is another reason, a more important reason, for moving Interfaith beyond our walls.   And that, strangely enough, brings us to today. 

 

A living Interfaith cannot exist only on Sunday morning.  It must move beyond these four walls.  A living Interfaith cannot exist only in special projects, it must move into our everyday lives.  It is here that we want to spend our time this morning.  It is with Interfaith as a 24/7 way of living.

 

Those of you who are still awake, and I’m hopeful there are some, must be asking, “Is he nuts?”  Interfaith is nice.  I believe in Interfaith, otherwise, why would I be here, listening to this when I could be out camping on this three-day weekend?  I have a family.  Where does Interfaith fit in that?  I have a job.  Where does Interfaith fit in that?  I vote every year.  I keep trying to “throw the scoundrels out” every year.  And every year there are new scoundrels: they pop up, like mushrooms, overnight – from nowhere.  Yes?  So where does Interfaith fit in that?

 

This brings us to the First Peoples value that we are trying to make a part of us this month.  Honesty.  The honest truth of it is that if we can live Interfaith, it will inform every moment we are awake, and perhaps even a few dreams.

 

Interfaith: respecting the humanity of the person next to us, across the street from us, in a different church from us; embracing the wonder that we ourselves have walked and are walking differing spiritual paths, and yet have ended up here.  We are called to lives of conscience: to look beyond and outside ourselves and to act with compassion and justice towards others.  Some of us are guided to this foundational belief through our perception of God as Spirit.  Another may be guided by his or her perception of God as manifested in Jesus.  Some are called here by the spirituality of the First Peoples, some by the words of the Rabbis, some by the words of Mohammed.  And we are here, together, because of the revolutionary thought that it is not what or who has called us here to change the world; but that we are called to change the world.

 

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln told the Congress that, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”  It is as if he were speaking to us today.  We are today a world divided as it has never been divided before; and at the same time we are a world that has never been so small.  We cannot pretend we do not know what is happening in Darfur.  We cannot pretend we do not know what is happening in our own cities.  The dogmas of our past are inadequate to the stormy present.  We must think anew and act anew.

 

There are books, best sellers as we speak, that tell us God must be discarded.  One is called, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  Another is called, The God Delusion.   Another is called, God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.   They purport to take us in a new direction.  But I would submit they are part of the old direction.  They cling to the ancient paradigm of “right belief.”  They don’t believe God exists, they believe there is only one right answer, so God must not exist.  They are right.  Anyone who disagrees is wrong.  And thus, they build yet another wall of separation.

 

Interfaith, if we truly embrace it, tears down the walls between our spiritual paths.  Interfaith, if we will truly live it, can be a model for how we live the entirety of our lives.  If we can tear down the walls that divide us spiritually, so can we bring down the walls that divide us racially, so can we bring down the walls that divide us by ethnicity, and by gender.  If we will live Interfaith, we can embrace at last our common humanity.  For to live Interfaith is to live without walls.

 

This is not to say that we are all the same.  We are not.  We are different.  Each of us, individually, is different.  Each of us culturally, ethnically and in other ways is different.  Interfaith is not, not to put on a blindfold.  We acknowledge our differences.  We respect our differences.  But if we will live Interfaith we will not let our differences divide us.

 

Try selling that one in to our Congress, or our President.   But what a difference the model of Interfaith would make if politicians, left and right, embraced it.

 

Well, I can dream. 

 

A few minutes ago, our choir sang an anthem that is very dear to my heart.  The refrain is “Help me see the part of me that lives inside of you.”  That’s Interfaith at its very core.  That’s living Interfaith.  That is an Interfaith that can be a model for the world.  Of how to be different, but in community.  How to acknowledge our differences without building walls.

 

Our church, here, can be a model, for other churches, other spiritual communities.  Not a model of perfection – I trust none of us is under the illusion that we are perfect.  But a model of how to work together, how to worship together.  Respecting and being enriched by our differences, rather than being divided by them.

 

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.”  But we need not be.  Alone we cannot change the world.  We cannot and should not try to force the world to change.  But we can and should invite the world to change.  And we can model one possible way it might change.  If we can do that, if we have the will to do that, then we will indeed be providing to the world a great gift: “The Gift of Living Interfaith.”

 

May it be so.